Publisher: Activision

Developer: Nerve Software, id Software

Release Date: 10/5/2005

Available On

I remember when Doom 3 came out for the PC in 2004, and it looked astounding. Compared to today, it’s a bit ugly, but it did shine on the Xbox. While, even on the Xbox, it looks dated, the game keeps a constant focus on the action. Through the whole 5–6 hours it takes you to beat the game, you’ll be on your edge and jumpy.

The graphics engine is exactly the same as in Doom 3, even in the way it plays. The only additions are a few new enemies, such as a big burly guy who has two giant cannons on his arms and head, Vulgar, who is a bat-looking thing that can teleport at you, and the Hazmat worker, just to name a few. You also get some new weapons like the Ionized Plasma Rifle (Think: Gravity Gun Half-Life 2), Double-Barrel Shotgun, and a new Heart Artifact that lets you slow downtime. These essentially help the game with its extreme difficulty in many ways. You now have a flashlight on a gun! Except it’s on your pistol, so it still doesn’t make a difference, but at least you can defend yourself now. You now have to defeat the bosses using the heart, and it also gets you out of a pinch.

The “Gravity Gun” lets you throw back energy balls and whatnot, and this is good for preserving ammo. The story has you playing as a clean-up crew for what happened on Site 1 two years ago. You discover the heart, and you have to return it to Hell. While there are very few cut scenes in the game and the PDA files aren’t as interesting as in Doom 3, you’ll mainly just play for the action. Another note is that no one is playing this online. I tried connecting three days in a row, and not one person was playing. So if you just want a great, fun single-player game, then pick this up. I also should mention that the game has backward compatibility issues with the Xbox 360, such as movies in the beginning not skipping and some slowdown.

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